1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of network data processing systems. More particularly, the invention relates to an improved architecture and method for managing contacts within an online stationery system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Web-based systems for designing stationery such as wedding invitations, birth announcements, thank you cards, birthday party invitations, etc, are currently available over the Internet. These services allow a user to enter a personalized message on a stationery template via a Web browser. The service then prints the stationery with the personalized message and mails the printed stationery and envelopes to the end user. The end user then mails the stationery to one or more recipients.
Some online stationery services will also mail stationery directly to recipients on behalf of the end user. In order to do so, the user must provide the stationery service with the names and addresses of the recipients. FIGS. 1a-c illustrate screenshots from one particular stationery Website (www.greetz.com) which provides options for manually entering a new name/address of a recipient 100 or importing a group of addresses from an Excel spreadsheet 101. As illustrated in FIG. 1b, upon selecting an Excel spreadsheet from the user's local hard drive, the user is prompted with a plurality of drop-down menus 102 to identify the data fields for the address lines. Once the import is complete, a list of recipients 103 is provided as shown in FIG. 1c. The end user is permitted to delete names from the list (by selecting a trash icon) but no other mechanism is provided for editing or otherwise managing the list of recipients on the online stationery service.
Consequently, what is needed is an improved system and method for importing and managing contacts within an online stationery service.